Israeli rule ‘key cause’ of Palestinian hardship: UN

occupied jerusalem — Fifty years after Israel occupied the Palestinian territories, its policies in the West Bank and Gaza are at the root of Palestinian hardship, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

“Occupation policies and practices remain the key cause of humanitarian needs in the occupied Palestinian territories,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report.

West Bank and Gaza residents suffer from a lack of basic security, it said, adding that the split between President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank-based administration and the rival Hamas in Gaza also restricts humanitarian work.

“At its heart, the crisis is one of a lack of protection for Palestinian civilians — from violence, from displacement, from restrictions on access to services and livelihoods, and from other rights violations.”

Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 Six-Day War. Repeated efforts to negotiate a solution to the conflict and establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel have stalled. —

at its heart, the crisis is one of a lack of protection for Palestinian civilians — from violence, from displacement, from restrictions on access to services and livelihoods, and from other rights violations The UN report